In a stunning blow to the official narrative propagated by the Bush administration, recently released, declassified emails have exposed the numerous lies government officials espoused in the months leading up to the war in Iraq.

So it is all coming out now ... the deliberate, cold-blooded planning to create a war with Iraq no matter the consequences. The evidence is contained in communications from then US Secretary of State Colin Powell to President George W Bush.

As relations between the West and Russia steadily deteriorate, Royal Air Force pilots have been given the go-ahead to shoot down Russian military jets when flying missions over Syria and Iraq if they are endangered by them.

UK media allegations that RAF pilots in Iraq had been authorized to shoot down Russian fighters in case of imminent threat have prompted a response from Moscow. Britain's military says there is "no truth" in the reports.

Antiwar.com found that at least 647 civilians and security personnel were killed across Iraq during September. Another 736 were wounded. Militants lost 3,195 personnel, while 397 of them were known wounded.

Hundreds of Iranian troops have arrived in Syria to join a major ground offensive in support of President Bashar al-Assad's government, Lebanese sources said on Thursday, a further sign of the rapid internationalization of a civil war in which every

Oftentimes when the U.S. superpower intervenes in the business of other nations, after U.S. troops withdraw, the American people lose interest and the country disappears from the consciousness of the public.

Lawrence Wilkerson, former chief of staff to former US Secretary of State Colin Powell claims that US politics is determined by about 400 people with a combined wealth of trillions of dollars who control government decision-making from the backstage.

Every time there is a big civil conflict in a country, pundits always rush to speculate about or even urge partition. I remember when I was living in Lebanon in the 1970s during the early years of its civil war, there were speculations that it would

BAGHDAD -- Iraq's Kurdish region has begun to sell oil independently of the central government, a move that is exacerbating divisions in the country as it struggles to turn back Islamic State militants.

Calls are mounting in Congress (and among some influential opinion groups) for escalating Washington's military intervention against ISIS in Iraq and Syria and for possible military action against Iran if the new nuclear agreement with that country